OR….
More Year End Book Analysis Fun … and No Whining This Time
I have decided 86 is the number of books I read last year. This includes DNFs, skimmed, and samples. Goodreads says I read 91 and I am not going to dig into it to figure out the difference. And this isn’t a whine, it’s just the way it is. This will be a long rambling post; enjoy or skip, I understand…
Same as last year! 
Total pages read is under dispute. Goodreads says 26,600.
I listened to 13 audiobooks. ~191 hours.
I had 16 five star reads and they are all so different — I enjoyed the experiences for different reasons. 
Run, Home, The Grand Sophy, Code Name Verity, The 4 and 20 Blackbirds Pie Book, The Bone Clocks, Kitchens of the Great Midwest, Just Mercy, Lap Girl, The Nix, Mister Monkey, Black Wave, Lincoln in the Bardo, So Much Blue, Anything is Possible, Born a Crime. I refuse to rank them and choose favorites but I will endorse a TOP TWO as recommendations. These two were the shiniest of the shiny:
TOP AUDIOBOOK EXPERIENCE.
TOP OVERALL ENJOYABLE FICTION 
The other books that I gave 4 slices to yet now looking back I wonder why and so I now want to shout out some love to are:
The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead. You will never again board an elevator and not think of this nutty little jewel. I liked it more than The Underground Railroad but that is probably because it is not as heavy…
The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin – wow! A series I’m eager to continue…
Lila. It’s Marilynn Robinson. Duh. I think I should have read the print version, though.
Petty:The Biography by Warren Zanes – oh. RIP, Tom. You wrote some great songs. Thank you. (and I was very impressed with the writing. I’m a new fan of Zanes.)
Mr. Splitfoot – quirky! Loved it.
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. Not sure why I didn’t give this one five slices originally. It deserves all its accolades and I recommend everyone read it. Gonna be a movie!
The longest title: On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon. The shortest title would be Z (leave off the stuff after the ‘:’) The longest book I read was NOS4A2 by Joe Hill at 742 pages. The longest audiobook was The Sport of Kings at ~23 hours.
I read 48 books by women, 38 written by men.
Repeated authors: Ann Patchett, David Mitchell, Stephen King, Marilynne Robinson, Kate Atkinson, Colson Whitehead.
Translated books: Sudden Death by Alvara Enrigue, A Man Called Ove by Fred Backman, The Little Paris Bookshop, Wake in Winter by Ndezha Belenkaya.
DNFs included two of the above…
Books I read that I now need to see the movie: Blindness, Mr. Mercedes, A Man Called Ove, A Long Way Home 
Books I read because I saw the movie: The Hunter was the source story for Payback. 
Challenges I successfully met: The What’s in a Name Challenge and the Tournament of Books. I had THE BEST time with the TOB and must say I am ridiculously proud that I read EVERY BOOK on the SHORT LIST!
Challenges that bested me: Classics Club and the 2017 Classics Challenge.
I can’t find my list tracking the 1001+ books to read before I die but I don’t think I hit many. I just didn’t read many old books; mostly read recently published. Perhaps Home by Marilynne Robinson? Orlando?
By decade:
2018 – 1
2017 – 10
2016 – 24
2010-2015 – 27
2000-2009 – 10
1990-99 – 7
1980-89 – 2
1970-79 – 2
1960-69 – 1
1950-59 – 2
1920-29 – 1
(whoa – no books from the 19th century. I told you I failed the classics challenge last year! I will blame the TOB on that and my new obsession to read books that might be TOB, though track record disputes this, methinks.)
The only readalongs I participated in were both David Mitchell books: The Bone Clocks and Slade House (which I read for RIP.)
I want to give David Mitchell my Pie in Literature Award but I can’t. His tweet was ever so squee worthy but it wasn’t IN A BOOK.
So the WINNER of the 2017 Care’s Books and Pie blog’s “PIE IN LITERATURE” Award goes to!
drum roll…
WHAT ALICE FORGOT 
by Liane Moriarty for the community bake off of the giant lemon meringue pie!
Cheers! Til this time again next year. I’m sure there will be whining… Have a great 2018 of reading experiences!!
Care's Books and Pie 
This was exceedingly fun to read! 🙂 And btw, I actually wrote you a letter on New Year’s Day–you were probably beginning to wonder if I remembered how, huh? 😉
Born a Crime was great on audio!
I really need to check out Born a Crime.
I have Code Name Verity, The Nix, and The Intuitionist on my TBR list to read this year, so it’s wonderful to hear they got high marks from you!
Congratulations to Liane Moriarty! 🙂
I was really hoping that The Hate You Give would end up on the TOB Long/Short List because I do want to read it but I need a reason to prioritize!
You are so food with your stats.
I WILL read Born a Crime this year! I might do the audio version, although it takes me FOREVER to do audio books.
Oh, you MUST listen to his voice! And he can do ALL the accents and languages (don’t worry – he perfectly delivers the translation)
Tips for incorporating audiobooks. 1) Audible on your phone. You can then clean, walk, mow the lawn, shovel the driveway, hide in a closet, whatever and your phone can slip in a pocket. Depending on your car, it may connect to the audiosystem and you can HEAR it through the car speakers. SO EASY. And your first Audible book is free so you can test it out.
2) check out if your library app allows audiobooks through your phone. The phone makes is all portable.
BEST!
Fabulous bookish year! I just put The Hate You Give on hold at the library.
Don’t throw in the towel on The Classics Club… that’s a five year deal! I will listen to Born a Crime this year, especially now that it’s in my audible library. One of my book club friends RAVES about Code Name Verity, too… she’s pushing the audio version. Either way, I’ll get to that one, too, but Kitchens of the Great Midwest will come first 😉
What a fantastic reading year you had! I Read Fifth Season too and loved it so much I followed it up a few weeks later with the second book. Now I am impatiently waiting my turn in the library holds queue for the third book. So good!
An excellent round-up post! And I strongly approve of your pie awarding. You make wonderful reading decisions, my friend, as always. ❤